


What You Need

by easilydistractedbyfanfic



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Depression, Emotional Baggage, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Minor Character Death, Porn With Plot, Read the Notes if you aren't sure, Smut, Suicide, Threats of Violence, What could have happened during those years in space, if things were darker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 07:55:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17597321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easilydistractedbyfanfic/pseuds/easilydistractedbyfanfic
Summary: What would happen if the madness of the six years in space took control? They've already lost one friend, and Raven doesn't want to lose another. How much will she risk to save Murphy?





	What You Need

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was basically a Murphy/Raven hate fuck in space, found here: https://100kinkmeme.livejournal.com/3621.html?thread=1297189#t1297189
> 
> I couldn't see these two characters realistically doing that unless their emotional baggage got overwhelming and there was a lot of guilt, self-recrimination and self-hatred. So this went darker than I've ever tried before, but I really like the characterizations it let me explore. 
> 
> If you need to know who I kill off, go check out the end notes where I will spoil it. Otherwise, I hope you'll give it a chance - I'm pleased with how it turned out even though I had no idea what would happen when I started this story. 
> 
> I'm not overly descriptive but beware TW - iffy consent issues, minor character death, suicide, cutting, depression, threats of violence, DARK SUBJECT MATTER
> 
> Shoutout to "Madness" by Muse, which I have always felt was a great Murphy/Raven song, and was a big inspiration here. This song freakin' rocks!

**TW - dubcon, character death, suicide, cutting, depression, threats of violence, DARK SUBJECT MATTER**

  
************************************************************************************************************

 

 

 

Sometime late in Year 4, Emori had reached her limit. She’d slit her wrists with a jagged piece of metal in the tiny bathroom of the area they’d set aside as a medical clinic, and Harper had found her the next day. Raven didn’t want to speak ill of the dead, but she was still pissed off that Emori hadn’t thought ahead to who would find her. Out of all of them left, Harper was the sweetest, the kindest, and she didn’t deserve to have that image stuck in her mind. The thought of it made Raven want to scratch someone’s eyes out. It should have been her, or Echo, or maybe even Bellamy. But not Harper, and certainly not Murphy. That was some fucking luck, at least, that it hadn’t been him.

 

Emori had never adjusted well to the isolation of space, and despite all of their efforts, had spiraled into a deep depression that she couldn’t get out of. She and Murphy had broken up a year or two in, Raven couldn’t even remember now, but he’d taken her death personally and blamed himself for not trying harder. Fuck, they all blamed themselves, for different reasons. All of them valid, yeah, but who didn’t bear massive amounts of guilt anymore, she’d like to know.

 

Raven herself had cleaned up all the blood, scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees, the physical pain of it feeling like some kind of penance. She’d tried so hard with Emori, they all had. But there’d been no reaching her, no getting through - outside of getting them back down to Earth, anyway. Maybe that would have done it. That’s where Raven felt the most guilt, of course. That it was her fault they were still up here on the Ring, that she hadn’t fully solved the problem yet. Yeah, sure, they all knew they had to give it a _minimum_ of five years because of the radiation, but they also all knew they weren’t anywhere close to having a legitimate touch-down plan to get back. So even though Emori had been so close to making it to the homestretch, it had to have been in her head that the countdown would inevitably continue. So… guilt. Truckloads of it.

 

Scrubbing the bathroom had helped, honestly. Had gotten some of her aggression out, made it so that she didn’t take out her feelings on the others quite as much. The screaming, the yelling, the accusations and pointed fingers wouldn’t help anyone, least of all Emori, but it was hard to avoid in the tinder box that was their tiny environment. Seven people - now six - all trying to exist together with their baggage of pain, guilt, anger, resentment, fear and even hate… it was frankly surprising that no one had succumbed earlier, Raven concluded. She’d thrown up in that bathroom, the smell of the blood all around her, sick with the knowledge that Emori was gone and sick with the certainty that she had contributed to it. It had been awful, beyond terrible, but when it was done, when the effort that had nearly killed her to do was over, when the bathroom was meticulously cleaned - Raven had felt better. Had felt like she’d also been scrubbed cleaner through the dreadful job of working through it. And it was this memory that she relied on when she decided to go to Murphy’s room.

 

Six months after Emori’s suicide, he still barely left it. After the two of them had broken up years ago, he’d taken over the tiniest space that still had a bathroom attached. It was farther away from the rest of them, almost on the other side of the Ring, and he had crammed in just a couple of mattresses piled on the floor with a small table for a nightstand. There were some hooks for his clothes, but even in their environment of minimalism, Murphy took it to another level. The only thing he really cared about were a few books he’d scavenged and the old touchscreen pad that Raven had fixed up enough for movies to be played on.

 

Every day, Raven brought him algae and water, and eventually she got a muttered ‘thanks’ for her efforts, but Murphy was punishing himself, and by extension, punishing the rest of them too. It wasn’t just that she’d had enough of it, because she understood, she _did_. But there was no fucking way she was going to lose anybody else, especially not him, and she had to do something, had to find a way to knock him into a different stage of grief, or mindset, or whatever the hell she should call it. And that was when the bloody bathroom had come crashing back into her head.

 

*****

 

“No matter what you hear, don’t come in. If it takes longer than you think it should, don’t disturb us. I mean it, Echo. You have to trust me to take care of this, trust that I can handle it even if it gets really bad.” She had decided to tell someone about her plan, and the obvious answer was Echo. Monty and Harper were far too precious for this clusterfuck, and even though they were both strong - they had to be up here in space - there was no way Raven wanted to put them in the line of fire. At least some of them needed to try and endure without all of their gentleness being erased. And Bellamy - he wouldn’t be able to hold out long enough, it wasn’t in his nature, but Echo… now there was a woman who would understand what had to be done.

 

“You know this might be for nothing,” Echo cautioned, and Raven appreciated the underlying message of concern.

 

“I have to try.”

 

Echo had understood, just like Raven knew she would, and agreed to be the one to bring by water and algae each day, along with some extra towels when she could. But unexpectedly, Echo had grabbed her arm as Raven started to walk away.

 

“Raven… I don’t know what he could be capable of. What if he really hurts you? You know we don’t have the equipment or even the knowledge if you really run into trouble. ”

 

She’d considered it, of course she had. It had kept her laying awake most nights, to tell the truth. But ultimately she had to believe she could trust her own instincts. “I know him. Things might get bad but he won’t take it that far.”

 

“What makes you think this is going to work?”

 

Oh, wasn’t that the loaded question. But there was no denying how she knew. She and Murphy were more alike than probably either of them cared to admit. “It’s what would work on me.”

 

*****

 

Even though he rarely left his room, there were some things he was predictable about. Raven knew he snuck out each night, late while everyone else was sleeping. Probably he walked around the Ring, restless, or he used the common areas when no one else was around. But it wasn’t important - all that mattered was that he’d be out of his room and that was Raven’s chance. The last month had been spent preparing the Ring as best she could for her absence, and she was confident that she’d get at least two weeks, maybe longer, where nothing calamitous would happen. She packed up a few of her things and listened carefully so she could avoid bumping into him, and got into his room without anyone seeing. She put her stuff in a neat pile by the nightstand, stripped out of all her clothes, folded them up and climbed under the blankets on his mattress, naked, exposed, heart pounding with anxiety as she waited for Murphy’s return.

 

She sat up when he came in, and even in the darkened room, he’d know it was her. The blanket was pulled up to cover her breasts, but her arms and shoulders were bare, and it wouldn’t take a genius to know she was naked. She’d been searching for a clue, something about his reaction to tell her whether there was still a chance, and the relief that floods her veins when she sees the brief flash of alarm in his eyes is just what she needs. No matter how angry he gets with her now, how furious he might feel when she pushes and pushes, he’s still _Murphy_. They’ll hurt each other, sure, both physically and emotionally, but it always results in them being stronger at the broken places. They don’t ever destroy the other past the point of no repair, though, and that’s what she’s been counting on.

 

“What the hell are you doing here,” he asks her, and his tone is weary, like he knows he should muster up the effort to care but can’t quite be bothered.

 

“Whatever you want,” Raven offers, and it’s easy to sound genuine because she means it. He’ll know it, too, because he’s always been better at reading people than he’s given credit for.

 

He just shrugs, and collapses onto the foot of the bed, taking off his boots. She’s not offended, it’s not like she expects this to be simple.

 

Murphy takes his shirt and his pants off, leaving his underwear on before lifting the blankets and climbing into the bed on the open side. Raven quickly scoots closer to the wall to make room, but he rolls to face away from her and doesn’t say a word. She could wrap her arms around him, could force him into physical contact, but that’s not the point of this since it all has to be on his terms. She just lays there and looks up at his ceiling, looking at the weird whirls and swirl pattern in the tile and imagines shapes like she used to do with the clouds on Earth.

 

*****

 

He mostly ignores her for three days, like she’s not even there. She feels awkward at first, with her constant nudity, but she got it into her head that she has to give vulnerability to get it, so she sticks it out. It gets easier each time she walks around, not that she goes farther than the attached bathroom. Echo keeps her word, and water and the crappy-ass algae drinks are dropped off every day, and while she’ll never tell anyone, it almost feels like a vacation. She doesn’t have to fix anything, doesn’t have anyone coming to her with constant problems or requests, and Murphy’s silent company is actually kind of comforting. Raven’s somewhat bored, but this is the calm before the storm, and since she doesn’t really know what’s coming next, she decides it’s smart to relax into it and put off the worry for however long she can.

 

There’s some small progress, maybe, on the third evening. He’d been looking at her off and on the past couple of days, but at first his gaze had just been random, like she was part of his surroundings and no more important than the wall or door handle. But when she didn’t leave, just sat with him as he read or slept, a bit of curiosity set in and his stare was more focused. That night he fell asleep on his back instead of automatically rolling away from her.

 

*****

 

Late on night five, she was in a sound sleep when the door slams shut and she abruptly wakes. Murphy must be coming back from whatever he does in the middle of the night, she realizes, and she’s alert, on edge, at this sign of anger from him.

 

“Do you want me to fuck you, is that what it’s going to take to make you go away?” Yeah, there’s some actual feelings there now for sure.  

 

Raven swipes her hair out of her face and sits up in the bed. Her attitude is a calm counterpoint to his. “You can fuck me if you want, but I’m not going anywhere.”

 

If anything, his fury seems to grow at her words. “You think you know what I want? What I want is you out of my face all the fucking time, out of my room! I don’t need a damned babysitter! Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone!”

 

She pushes back a little, steeling herself for whatever the fallout might be. His blue eyes are blazing with temper; it’s the most emotion she’s seen from him in a long time, and it sends her pulse racing. “I may not know what you want, but I know what you need.”

 

His hands ball into fists at his side as he snarls at her. “Who the fuck do you think you are! Go on, impress me with your fucking brilliance then! What is it you think I need?”

 

Raven takes a deep breath and tells him the truth. “A target.”

 

The rage doesn’t disappear, doesn’t weaken, but she sees something else flit across his face now too. He’s scared. They stare fiercely at each other, locked into a battle of wills that Raven is determined to win. She could lose him here - he could shut down, refuse to talk, and it’ll be harder to reach him again. Whatever he throws at her in this confrontation, she has to take and can’t back down, because this is an all or nothing scenario and she knows it.

 

Murphy strides towards her and hauls her up by her hair. It’s not that painful but he’s deliberately overpowering her. He pushes her against the wall with one hand at her throat. He wants to intimidate her, wants to frighten her in return, but she won’t give him the satisfaction and meets his eyes in defiance.

 

“So what, you gonna let me beat the shit out of you then,” he sneers. “Let me kick and hit and use you as a punching bag until I feel better?”

 

It was always a possibility, this one. It’s what Echo was most concerned about and Raven tried not to dwell on. She’s had her fair share of torture, but she’s no masochist. This isn’t the way she’d wanted this to go down, but she’s all in no matter what, so she doesn’t flinch when she responds.

 

“If that’s what it takes.”

 

The admission stuns him, but to his credit, he barely reacts. Just a slight widening of the eyes gives it away, and only because she knows him well, knows what to look for.

 

“And if that doesn’t do it, then what?” He crowds her harder against the wall with his torso, hand still squeezing at her throat and eyes still pinned on hers. “You want me to pick you apart and throw all your worst fears about yourself in your face, ‘cause we both know we’re good at that. Are you looking to be punished for whatever the fuck is in your own head? Is that what you’re after by poking me? Or maybe you just get off on this whole idea of saving someone, maybe that’s what this is. You think you can come in here and ‘fix’ me, and hope that it’ll pay your own debts. Guess what? It fucking won’t.”

 

She swallows hard and licks her lips. Yeah, they’re both good at finding the weak points. “I can’t stop you from thinking what you want. I’ve got just as much baggage as the next person up here, maybe more, maybe less. We’re all screwed up.” Her eyes flicker over his face, searching for reassurance. “But you know me just as well as I know you. So you’ll know if I’m lying when I tell you that I’ll do whatever I have to in order to stop you from fading away. I’m not going anywhere. I won’t leave you, and I won’t let you leave me, even if you hate me for it. All that rage you feel, that resentment… I can take it and you know it, because we’re both fighters and we’re going to survive even if I have to drag you to the goddamn finish line. So wake the fuck back up because I don’t want to do this by myself even though I can.”

 

At first nothing changes. The tension between them stretches tight and she thinks she’s failed to reach him, failed to convince him that she won’t take no for an answer. There’s no shift in his steady blue gaze, no loosening of his hand at her throat to make her think she’s succeeded, so she opens her mouth to keep talking, not knowing what she’s going to say next. But before she gets a word out, his mouth slams over hers in a bruising imitation of a kiss, fingers clutching her neck even more firmly and almost pulling her up on her toes. So it’s going to be the fucking, then. Raven has mixed feelings about this result, to say the least. There’s been something building between the two of them for longer than she wants to acknowledge, and sure, she’s thought about having sex with Murphy before. A lot, considering she hasn’t had sex in what, over five years now, maybe even close to six. And it’s not like she was imagining fluffy, sweet, romantic sex between them either. That’s not who either of them are.

 

But this is going to be different. As far as she knows, he hasn’t had sex with anyone else since he broke up with Emori, so that’s maybe going on a three year dry spell for him. Add that to the very clear indication that he wants to punish her for caring about him, is most likely outraged that she won’t let him distance himself and take the easy way out, and isn’t yet in a headspace where he wants to acknowledge emotions other than the unhealthy ones… Well, this is going to more than tiptoe over the line into the darker aspects of their desires, and while it would never be rape where she and Murphy are concerned, could never be because of how she feels about him and what she’s willing to risk for him, she’s going to have to ensure that however far he takes this, she’ll absolve every guilty sting that he’ll undoubtedly feel when he comes back to himself.

 

Murphy’s worked his thigh between her legs, lifting her just that much more off the floor. The threatening hand at her neck and the hard muscle grinding up into her pussy should probably make her nervous instead of turn her on, but she wasn’t lying when she told Murphy they were all messed up from their past experiences, and her sexual desires had never been vanilla anyway. He sucks on her tongue ruthlessly, to the point of discomfort, but she inhales deeply through her nose and forces both her mind and body to relax. His free hand moves to grip her hip, and her own arms, which have been submissively at her side until now, raise up to rest her hands lightly on his shoulders.

 

He relinquishes her mouth and attacks her neck, just above where his fingers still half-choke her. The stubble on his face scratches her delicate skin as he moves his head, and the aggressive way he sucks and bites is another attempt on his part to show her that he’s in charge. Raven gasps as his teeth scrape over a particularly sensitive spot, and he bites down harder. She doesn’t know if he meant to give her pleasure or pain, but he succeeds at both. Her neck is going to be covered in purplish bruises tomorrow. Murphy rubs his thigh insistently between her legs, and she’s sure he can feel the damp spot she left on his pants with the motion.

 

Unexpectedly, he slips one long finger into her pussy, eliciting a shaky cry from her lips. She’s plenty wet enough, but the stimulation is extreme after so long without anything like it, and the walls of her cunt almost seem to want to force him out. Murphy groans into her shoulder and pushes his finger deeper, curling the tip of it up towards her belly in a way that makes her feel dizzy. Her own fingers dig into his shoulders reflexively, her eyes rolling back as she gasps and trembles.

 

The sound of his zipper is loud in the tiny room, and Raven braces for what’s coming next. He hasn’t met her eyes since this turned sexual, and she knows he won’t because on some level he doesn’t want to acknowledge that this isn’t just him punishing her, or her letting him do it - it’s something momentous between them, could end up changing everything. For that and so much more, she turns her head to the side and squeezes her eyes tightly shut, whispering just loud enough for him to hear her.

 

“Please.”

 

The head of his cock pushes up into her, and she whimpers, torn between wanting to sink down further onto the hard, hot length of him, and also wanting to lift up on the very tips of her toes to try to escape the feeling of being so utterly full. He doesn’t let her decide, doesn’t let her take more than a breath before he shoves himself the rest of the way in and starts to fuck her rough and fast. There’s no words she can scream, only low, guttural noises that get ripped out of her at the overwhelmed sensations pulsing through her. Murphy’s head rests heavy against hers, his mouth at her ear and his harsh breaths adding to the pressure building inside. Her teeth gnash together and the hand he still has at her throat squeezes tighter, making her pant as he fucks up into her almost brutally now. There’s a brief moment of clarity in her mind where she realizes he’s not just punishing her, he’s punishing himself too, but it’s lost all too quickly as her body reaches its limit and she starts to shudder, her pussy clenching down snug around him. He uses his weight to hold her against the wall so he can lift one of her thighs higher and work himself into her as deep as he can, holding himself there while he twitches and spurts, her cunt still spasming around him as he slows down. Between them there’s so much come that it starts to leak out while he’s still buried inside her, and the sticky feel between her wobbly legs is a good match to the complex feelings skipping furiously through her mind.

 

*****

 

She wakes up later that night, lying on her side with his body at her back and his hand between her legs. She’s still wet with the mix of their fluids from before, and he wastes no time ramming himself into her. She comes so fast that he laughs mockingly in her ear, but the sex stays hot, rough, with no talking and no eye contact between them.

 

It goes like this for quite a while, Raven’s not sure for how long. She’s exhausted, her body sore and worn out, and the physical exertion takes its toll. At one point he fucks her so hard from behind that her legs refuse to hold her up for two days, but she comes every time they fuck, often more than once, and she both hates him for it and wants more. He’s so fucking stubborn, not that she expected different, but there are moments she can barely hold on to her neutral behavior around him. Sometimes she just wants to cry at the thought that it might be too late, but she saves her sobbing for the occasional shower when he’s taking his late night trip out of the room so he can’t hear her.  

 

Raven thinks maybe it’s in the middle of the third week when he does something that makes her believe it’s finally working. He never lets himself cuddle with her, not after sex, not while they’re sleeping. He tries not to show any emotions at all other than anger and desire. But something wakes her in the early hours of the morning, and she realizes what it is immediately. He’s at her back like usual, but instead of rolling away from her or laying facing the ceiling, this time his arm is wrapped around her waist and his hand is splayed on her belly. Murphy’s breathing is steady, rhythmic, on the back of her neck, and his head is tucked onto her shoulder. He might not be aware he’s doing it, but he’s reached for her in his sleep. She wiggles just the slightest bit to see if she can escape his grasp, and his arm tightens like she hoped it would. As signs go, it might not be the biggest one she’s ever seen, but she’ll certainly take it.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you stuck with me on this one! And I super hope you liked it even though it went dark! Grateful to the OP who made this prompt and was satisfied with it even though it went a little differently. 
> 
> If you need to be spoiled on the character death - I kill off Emori.


End file.
